As a shareholder you have certain obligations. A few key ones relate to regulatory issues:

'Insider trading' - if you're in a position to have, obtain or receive, information that may affect the share price, you may not act upon that information until it is in the public domain, typically following its release via an announcement to the Market.

'Insider Trading' and other market abuse issues are covered by the Market Abuse Directive 2005.

Learn more about insider trading, reporting requirements and related topics in the Market Abuse section of the FSA's website >

Disclosure of your holding once it reaches a set threshold (whether by way of physical stock or an off-market holding such as in CFDs - in general terms, and purely as a 'rule of thumb', you will need to disclose a holding that gives you voting rights over 3% or more of the total voting rights and issued share capital. (You can see the issued share capital on our company quote page - click here for an example.)

You report your holding to both the FSA and to the company using a form TR-1; notes about it's completion are also available on the FSA's website.

During an offer period, if you are interested (directly or indirectly) in 1% or more of any class of relevant securities of an offeror or of the offeree company, or as a result of any transaction will be interested in 1% or more, you should publicly disclose dealings in any relevant securities of that company.

Learn more about shareholding disclosure requirements >

And details relating to disclosure during offer periods are available on The Takeover Panel's website >

From time to time your investments may be subject to 'corporate actions'. These can be many and varied but the most common are:

Payment of a dividend: we collect dividends on your behalf, credit them to your account and send you a secure message to let you know it has been received. Once a year we'll send you a Consolidated Tax voucher (along with your annual statement and valuation) showing income received and the tax deducted at source.

Please note that for fixed income investments such as Gilts you will receive a gross dividend but may have paid accrued interest (as shown on your Contract Note) at the time of purchase: you should allow for any such payment when completing your tax return.

Capital reorganisation: occasionally companies may make changes to the structure of shareholder funds by, for example:

A share 'split' e.g. ordinary 25p shares become ordinary 5p shares and your holding is increased five fold, albeit the share price decreases proportionally. This is typically when the share price has risen to a point where it is believed to be unattractive to potential investors: or,

A share 'consolidation' where the reverse happens and, for example, ordinary 5p shares become ordinary 25p shares and holdings are reduced five-fold and the share price increases five-fold.

We'll advise you of the arrangement and adjust your holdings accordingly. There is no adjustment needed to your 'book cost' since this reflects the cost of the total holdings and is therefore unchanged.

Another form of reorganisation can be alternative to change the structure of a group of companies, e.g., by introducing a new holding company. Again, we'll advise you and adjust your holdings.  However, the 'book' cost' would remain assigned to one of the original holdings and the new shares will be shown at a nil cost.

Take-Over (including Mergers and Acquisitions): one company is acquired by, or merges with, another.

Rights Issue: used by Companies to raise capital, Existing shareholders are entitled to buy additional shares in proportion to their existing holdings. We'll advise you of the terms of the offer and take-up or sell your Rights as you instruct.

Find out more about how we handle Corporate Actions >

Different factors apply when investing in international markets. In addition to the key factor of exposure to exchange rate fluctuations, different market hours apply and operational processes apply. Please see our International shares page for further details.